AOW too soon??

[jbd]

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I don't know what he had to do in the water that he never had to think of before so I can't clarify that.

Now let me say that he could have been Bull*****ing me but I doubt it. He told me that he had to remove and replace his gear underwater while blinddfolded. He told me that he had to dive to the bottom of the pool remove his gear and then swim to the top. Take a couple of breaths and dive down to put the gear back on. He said they had to assemble the gear blindfolded before they ever got in the pool. And last but not least they had to jump in the pool with their tank between their legs and their reg in hand. When they hit the water they had to turn the tank on and put the reg in their mouth to breath. Now that is stuff he never had to think about in OW. I know I did OW with him.

Sounds like your friend did the scuba ditch and recovery, and the scuba bailout. I've not heard of it being done blindfolded though. These are typically things that are asked of DM, AI and Instructors although it could also be done within any of the courses. The scuba bailout is actually easier to do than it sounds IMO.

IMO these are good things to do as long as the students are given a thorough demonstration and ample time to practice each scenario. Properly done it builds one's confidence.

 

[jbd]

The SSI AOW course requires a minimum of four specialty courses and a minimum of 24 logged dives before you can recieve your open water card.

The four specialties can be any four specialties. Most of the specialty course require that you read a book, do the knowledge reviews, take a test, and do at least two dives.

For example if I did EANx, Deep Diving, Night and Limited Visibility, and Drysuit Diving I would have to do the following:

EANx:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the EANx test
4. Analyze a tank of EANx

There are no dives required for EANx

Deep Diving:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Deep Diving test
4. Do two dives between 60 - 130 ft within NDL limits and have a divemster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Night and Limited Visibility:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Night and Limited Visibility test
4. Do two dives with limited visibility or night dives and have a divemaster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Drysuit Diving:

1. Read the book
2. Do the knowledge reviews
3. Take the Drysuit Diving test
4. Do two dives with a drysuit in open water and have a divemaster and/or instructor sign off on the dives witnessing that you did the dives.

Because the nature of drysuits most instructors will also make the student do one or two pool dives with the drysuit so that the student can get used to the suit in confined water.

After that the student would have to wait until they accumilated 24 logged dives before they could recieve their AOW card.

Did you notice that I said that the AOW student can do any four specialty courses? Unlike PADI, SSI doesn't require navigation or deep dives. A potential SSI AOW student could something like altitude, computer, fish id, and night and never really be challenged as a diver. I don't really agree to that, but to each his own.

Overall, a pretty good program. I really like the experience based requirements. One question though, well maybe two 1.)Does the 24 dives include the dives done to get the specialty ratings 2.) can the specialties be done prior to getting the 24 logged dives? My preference even if I were a SSI instructor would be for the person to get teh 24 dives logged first then start the specialty courses, especially if the specialties involved navigation, deep diving and EANx.

 

[K Mejean]

These stunts do nothing in my view. How did he improve his bouyancy? how did me learn to gas plan a dive? How did he learn to do the things a person needs to be a good diver?

Fd

I thought the same thing as did he. He even said to me that if he loses his vision and his regulator under water he expects his buddy to be able to assist. I would love to do advanced I just want to take class that will help me. I'm not looking to be superman. I just want to know how to react in any given situation.

 

[BKP]

I am not AOW certified yet but my LDS told me that NAUI has no real requirments for advanced as far as pool and class go. They told me as long as you could do the required dives that is all that matters. Now that being said I had a friend take it a couple of weeks ago and he said it was a tuff class. That there was a lot of things he had to do in the water this time that he never had to even think about in OW. I would like some clarification on this as well so I know to sign up or not. If anyone knows I would like to know the differences in NAUI and SSI and if I can swap from one to the other for the advanced.

"Tuff" is a relative term. With a good instructor (and I think mine was) AOW *should* push the student's envelope and skillset.

I agree with all those above that advocate at least 20-30 dives between OW and AOW. ie: my NAUI AOW class included Search and Recovery, which required maintaining buoyancy at multiple depths (doing a bottom search with a team of four on a line, on a sloped topography). I realize buoyancy is a skill taught in OW, however, how many recent OW graduates have it mastered to the point of being able to concentrate on the task at hand -- communication through the line, obstruction evasion, the search itself -- while dealing with buoyancy as second nature... I believe that simply comes with practice... (but that's me...)

AOW can be subjective simply given the nature of the course (no classroom academics except for individual dive briefings/instruction). This (again, my personal perspective) is where the instructor distinguishes themselves....

 

[jbd]

I got my OW in 1998 and just did the AOW in August of this year with just under 50 dives going in to the class. The class helped a little in revisiting how to determine proper weighting, as well as the UW navigation section. I think the AOW course would have been more of a benefit to me if I had taken it right after the OW course. I agree that there is nothing 'advanced' about AOW; I see AOW as 'Open Water, Part two'. I think the content of AOW isn't advanced enough for dive experience to help make the course content more meaningful.

As a brand new diver, how would you have faired with a four leg, i.e 3 course changes, midwater compass navigation dive in 6 to 8 foot viz? Would you have been able to maintain the the specified depth within a foot or two the entire time? How confident would you have been in arriving at the destination of each leg?

As a new diver, how would you have faired finding a small(under 10 lb) item during the search and recovery dive in similar viz with uneven terrain?

As a new diver, how would you have faired seraching for, rigging and deploying the correct number of lift bags to recover a large object?

As a new diver, how would you have faired making an appropriate team plan for a deep dive including contingencies?

When a person comes to an AOW course capapble of diving comfortably it is far easier to teach this kind of course.

 

[loosebits]

There are apparently two styles of AOW courses. There is the rigorous style JBD teaches and then the general AOW class that I've seen taught (we have a local quarry that has been dredged to 60' just so AOW students can stick their gauges in the mud and call it 60'). Unfortunately both are needed. Most OW students come out of class not being prepared for diving without an instructor. Either they must find a mentor or they take one of these joke classes to get some more instructor time. OW divers who have the proper experience for whatever reason would be wasting their time with such as class and would be far better off simply not taking AOW or finding a class like JBD's.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a need for both types of classes.

 

[RonFrank]

Every dive shop I've been to pushes instruction. Every one I've been to will accept AOW students fresh out of OW. This is not agency specific as the NAUI shop in Denver is more desperate for business than most.

The key is once again a good instructor that is supported by good LDS facilities.

My AOW included classroom, knowledge reviews, and pool time. Our skills were NOT just dives other than the Altitude which was more about planning, and we just enjoyed our dive. Here is what some of our skills involved during the dives, and with the number of skills involved for expeciall buoyancy obviously good communication was key and stressed:

Buoyancy - Determine proper wieghting. Hover 2 minutes. Fin pivots. Swim through the hoops! Summersalts and rolls while maintaining depth.
Navagation - Out and back. Square. Triangle. Search patterns.
Deep - gas management, and dive planning. coordination drill at both the surface and at depth (remove nut from bolt, and rethread). View the color slate at the surface and at depth to see how light changes as depth increases.
Altitude - Pre dive planning to determine the impact of alititude on depth, BT, NDL, and SI's.
Night Dive - Navigation out and back.

So let's not just bash PADI or whom ever, and keep in mind that market pressue drives the LDS to potentially accept student who are not ready for AOW.

I'm not certain what would have happened had I failed any of the skills during our AOW, but I would like to think that our LDS does not just pass everyone in the class, and in fact I know they do not in OW as I know of students who fail, or at least have to come back in for more pool sessions, or additional OW dives.

 

[jbd]

These stunts do nothing in my view. How did he improve his bouyancy? how did me learn to gas plan a dive? How did he learn to do the things a person needs to be a good diver?

Fd

These "stunts" would not have been the only things he did during the course. These selected skills, as NAUI calls them, may have been introduced to them at this point because some of the students that take this class may go on to become DM's AI's or instructors. As I noted earlier, properly taught these selected skills enhance confidence in the water especially in view of dealing with problems.

 

[amascuba]

Overall, a pretty good program. I really like the experience based requirements. One question though, well maybe two 1.)Does the 24 dives include the dives done to get the specialty ratings 2.) can the specialties be done prior to getting the 24 logged dives? My preference even if I were a SSI instructor would be for the person to get teh 24 dives logged first then start the specialty courses, especially if the specialties involved navigation, deep diving and EANx.

1.) The 24 dives includes all the students open water dives to date. Including their 5 - 6 dives that they did to complete their open water course.

2.) Yes, You can start working on the specialties straight out of open water. If you do the four courses that I gave as an example straight out of open water that would leave you with 11 - 12 logged open water dives and you would have 12 - 13 dives to do before you could file for your AOW card.

It's also worth noting that the experience dives don't have to be in a classroom environment. You could go straight to blue water out of open water and do deep and night dives and have your divemaster sign your log book stating that you did the dives and that could count towards your dives.

 

[jbd]

I agree with all those above that advocate at least 20-30 dives between OW and AOW. ie: my NAUI AOW class included Search and Recovery, which required maintaining buoyancy at multiple depths (doing a bottom search with a team of four on a line, on a sloped topography). I realize buoyancy is a skill taught in OW, however, how many recent OW graduates have it mastered to the point of being able to concentrate on the task at hand -- communication through the line, obstruction evasion, the search itself -- while dealing with buoyancy as second nature... I believe that simply comes with practice... (but that's me...)

BKP---tell the truth---did you have a real sense of accomplishment upon completion of that course?

Kudos to your instuctor!!